The Division Bell Mystery

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by Ellen Wilkinson


  “No more whisky for me,” said Don. “Got a kettle? Some good strong tea I want and I prescribe the same for you. No, don’t you worry”—as Bob made an impatient move—“I’ll find the doings.”

  While Don busied himself making the tea Bob moved restlessly round the flat, picking up a book and putting it down, lifting up the telephone receiver and putting it on its hook again without making a call, upsetting a loaded ash-tray and swearing viciously. Shaw took no notice of his fidgeting. His movements were almost old-maidish in their precision as he moved round the untidy, shabby little flat. He arranged the thick cups on the tea-tray quite daintily and carried it into the living-room. “It’s no use wasting all that nervous energy tearing yourself to fiddlestrings,” he said quietly. “Either now or, better still, when you’ve had a night’s sleep, we’ll go through the whole thing carefully. But it’s not your fault in any way, and really, if it comes to that, it’s not your Home Secretary’s.”

  West dug his hands into his pockets. “I’m not an unfeeling brute, Don. But it’s not Oissel I’m worrying about, or how he got himself made into a corpse. I can see us—the Government, I mean—being able to take his death quite philosophically if it had happened elsewhere, or even if we knew why it had happened here. But it may mean the most awful mess-up—America on her hindlegs, shares going to blazes on the Exchanges, the loan scuppered. And why? My God, Don, the most maddening thing in politics is just to be told enough about things to realize how much you’re not allowed to know.”

  “Your Minister didn’t seem so upset as all that,” Shaw replied soothingly.

  “That’s because you don’t know him. The Chief hasn’t got where he is by his brains—every one knows that. He’s the stupidest cuss in some ways. But he can be magnificent when a face has got to be put on things. A face-saver is the most useful member of any Cabinet, and that’s why the Premier relies on him so.”

  “Well, he certainly kept a fine straight face this night of grace,” said Don. “A general reading his own casualty lists couldn’t have done it better. But what share has the Premier in all this?”

  Before West could answer, the door-bell pealed loudly. Don moved to the door.

  “Sancroft, I suppose?”

  “Yes, don’t go down. Sannie has a key. He often sleeps here on late nights at the House.”

  “Got anything to drink, you two?” called a cheerful voice from the hall. “What a night for June! Pouring heavens hard now. Weeping for your millionaire, Bobbie, my lad, or perhaps the mess the Government will be in to-morrow because of this little flutter?” Sancroft strolled in and began to take his boots off by the gas-fire.

  “What! That all the whisky left for three? Good thing you’re eking it out with tea. Well, I’ve got a bit of news to provide some stimulus if the whisky don’t. Guess what’s happened to your friend Oissel now?”

  “Happened to Oissel? Isn’t he dead after all?” asked West.

  “Dead enough, I’m afraid, but he’s been burgled.”

  “Burgled—when? Since he committed suicide or when he was at dinner?”

  Sancroft put on some ancient slippers of Bob’s, and filled his pipe from a large tobacco jar. “Seems to have been taking place about the same time—no, a little later. The news was through on the tape as I was leaving the office after finishing my stuff.”

  “You’ve not been there, then?”

  “Not me. Officially I’m not supposed to be interested in anything that doesn’t happen in the House of Commons—a view I do my best to encourage. And anyway our crime squad is on a job like that. No, no tea, my dear Bobbie. Why do you allow wild men of the beyond to lure you into drinking the stuff? No wonder you up and murder your Chief’s guests at the slightest provoc——”

  A cushion caught him on the mouth. Sancroft tucked it behind his head and put his feet on the mantelpiece.

  “And now, Bob, my son, you’ve got to give Uncle the inside dope about this pleasant little party in Room J. I’ve been looking up the record of Monsieur Georges Oissel and he seems to have been quite an interesting guest.”

  “What have you found out about him?”

  “Director of the American Foreign Loans Corporation and President of the Eclair Texan Oil Corporation. In his spare time he seems to have directed one or two other useful enterprises. Now I can’t see our Home Secretary concerned with Texan oil. He hasn’t much money and what he has is in pretty dull securities, I think. But the A.F.L.C. is rather different. Was he just ghosting for our revered Premier, for I take it that the Treasury knew something of this happy occasion—or didn’t they? Our P.M. is a devil for not letting departments in on their own jobs, if he can get ’em happily interested in some one else’s.”

  West was twisting a wire toasting-fork into odd sorts of shapes. He put it down and began to walk up and down the room.

  “Sannie, you know as much as I do. The Cabinet was keeping the loan negotiations pretty dark. They had to. You can’t conduct business like that in the Albert Hall and charge for admission. But as far as I know both sides were doing a straight deal. The terms were pretty high, but, as far as I can gather, Oissel and the Home Secretary were engaged in a friendly attempt to strike a bargain and make a present of it to the Premier.”

  “Then why should Oissel have chosen such a moment to shoot himself without giving the Home Secretary even a hint?” asked Shaw.

  “And is this burglary a pure coincidence? No, my lad, there’s something fishy here,” said Sancroft.

  The three men, who had been pulling silently on their pipes after Sancroft’s remarks, started as the door-bell pealed loudly again.

  “Who can it be at this hour?” said Shaw, going to the window and trying to peer into the street through the heavy rain. “Need we answer the door?”

  “We’d better,” said Sancroft. “Some one else may be in the soup by now. I’ll go down, and if it’s anyone without a brand-new bit of mystery I’ll say you’re not in, unless”—and he grinned—“you were expecting some one special to-night, Bob.”

  West managed an answering grin and returned to the twisting of his wire toasting-fork until Sancroft called out from the hall, “Bob, it’s Inspector Blackitt.”

  West went out to greet his visitor, and Shaw heard a deep but pleasant voice saying: “I’m really sorry to intrude at this late hour, Mr West, but I had to see you.”

  “That’s all right, Inspector. We aren’t exactly feeling like bed just yet. Don, this is Inspector Blackitt, one of our crack men from Scotland Yard.”

  “I’m glad to meet one in real life,” smiled Don. “Have a peg, Inspector?”

  While he went through the whisky and soda ritual, Shaw got his impressions of the newcomer in his quiet absorbent way. A thickset man, Scandinavian in colouring, a humorous face, and a navy-blue lounge suit worn with that air partly of authority, partly of deference to the authority of others, which is so marked in the upper ranks of the British police service.

  “Is this the gentleman who was dining with you?” asked the Inspector as he took the glass from Don.

  “Yes, and Sancroft of course you know.”

  “Far too well,” said the Inspector with a smile, “but he tells me he’s here as your friend and not as a newspaper man, so we can get to business.”

  “Of course you’ve heard about the burglary at Oissel’s flat to-night,” said Sancroft, hoping that he hadn’t.

  “Just come from there. You got it on the tape, I suppose. Awful shame about poor Jenks, isn’t it?”

  “Jenks,” gasped Bob. “What’s happened to him?”

  “He’s dead too,” said the Inspector gravely. “I thought you knew as you’d got news of the burglary. The thieves shot him.”

  “That wasn’t in the first message I saw. Jenks gone west! The Home Secretary’s own marvellous Jenks. My hat, your old man will think it’s not his lucky day, Bob,”
said Sancroft.

  “But who is, or was, Jenks?” asked Shaw.

  “I told you at dinner. He was my Chief’s own man. He saved the Chief’s life when he was at the Foreign Office in the last Government but one, so the Chief took him on as his valet and confidential man, and he thought an awful lot of him. He really was the world’s best, poor chap.”

  “It’s mainly about Jenks that I’ve come to see you,” said the Inspector. “He must have died very pluckily defending Oissel’s property against the thieves, but I can’t quite make out why he was there at all. Why wasn’t Oissel under the ordinary protection of the Yard?”

  “Because he simply would not be,” replied West, pushing his tobacco jar towards Blackitt. “With all due respect to your fellows, Inspector, these personal bodyguards you supply to our distinguished visitors can be an infernal nuisance. Oissel has never had any guard except his own valet, a queer old Frenchman, Pierre Daubisq, who couldn’t keep off a cockroach. A chap like Oissel has his good share of enemies, and it was pretty important to the Government that nothing should happen to him while he was here. When he sent your men packing it was a bit awkward, so after we’d thought of everything else the Home Chief had a brain-wave and offered the services of Jenks. And he and old Oissel got on together excellently.”

  “But what did happen at the flat, Blackitt?” asked Sancroft. “What were the thieves after?”

  “We haven’t got the full details yet. I’ve left a good man in charge down there. Oissel’s man was found chloroformed. The hall-porter got suspicious when he saw the two men he’d taken up in the lift dash down the stairs, and he called the police. They found poor Jenks dead in the hall, and Daubisq chloroformed. Until we can get him coherent we can’t find out what’s happened.”

  “And you’ve no idea what they were after? Was it just ordinary robbery?”

  “As far as one could judge it wasn’t an ordinary burglary. There were plenty of things of value lying about which they might have taken if it had been that. Have you any idea what they might have been after, Mr West?”

  “You must ask the Home Secretary that, Inspector.”

  The Inspector put down his glass, refused a refill, and leant over to Robert.

  “Mr West,” he said earnestly, “it’s pretty important for the Government to have this thing cleared up, isn’t it?”

  “Very important, I should think.”

  “Then I want your help in getting certain information, and I don’t think I can do much without it.”

  This was flattery indeed, as West’s faint flush showed. But the young man was a politician of parts, and not given to rash confidences.

  “You can have that, Inspector, but you know that a Parliamentary private secretary is never told anything, not even enough to know what he mustn’t tell.”

  “I’m not after State secrets, Mr West. The message I got from the Home Secretary was that he was most concerned in having the whole affair cleared up so that at least the Government should know what had happened, even though it might not be considered wise to let too much of Oissel’s private affairs leak out to the public. My task will be impossible unless I have your friendly co-operation even to getting interviews with the Home Secretary when I want them. If you’ll help I promise you that you won’t be kept in the dark from my side.”

  “What an offer, Bob! Make that to me, Inspector, and I am your willing slave until Jenks’ murderer is kicking the air,” said Sancroft.

  “You’ve helped me before, Mr Sancroft,” smiled the Inspector, “but reporters aren’t the birds wanted on this. As Mr West’s friend we’ll be glad to have what assistance you can give us, for I never met a better ‘nose’ than yours.”

  “An insignificant organ, but it has served,” said Sancroft, stroking it.

  “Am I to be left out of all the excitement?” Shaw added in his soft, slow voice.

  “Rather not,” said Bob. “You’ve put your foot right into the middle of it already, so it’s got to stay there. Well, here we are at your disposal, Inspector. Now command us.”

  The Inspector smiled. “There shouldn’t be any more difficulty now than is necessary to sharpen our appetites for the work,” he smiled, “but I am afraid there will be. Anyway, there’s nothing more that we can do now. You’ve given me what I wanted to know about Jenks. I have that appointment to meet the Home Secretary at twelve to-morrow at the Home Office—that is, if he doesn’t have to call it off for a Cabinet meeting or something like that. It’s then I’ll need your assistance, Mr West.”

  “Right. I’ll be in my room at the H.O. from half-past ten to-morrow. I can’t promise to get you into the presence, but I’ll carry messages.”

  The Inspector rose. “Then I think a sleep won’t do us any harm, especially you, Mr West.”

  “I feel like nothing on earth,” said West as he busied himself getting his guest’s coat and hat. “You’re not going, are you?” he added as he saw Sancroft putting on his boots again.

  “Oh, I’ll stroll along with the Inspector and chew over a theory or two. London seems to be a place where it’s wise to walk about in twos after a night like this.”

  When Blackitt and Sancroft had left, West stood for a moment looking down at Shaw, who still lolled in the armchair.

  “And London wasn’t going to be exciting enough to keep you,” he said.

  “Done tolerably well for a beginning,” replied Don with a yawn, “and I see the possibilities of a little more excitement when the rest of the picture gets filled in.”

  CHAPTER IV

  Sir George Gleeson, the chief permanent official to the Home Office, was a man who expected people to be impressed with him—and they were. It was not difficult to see why. He was not a specially impressive figure—rather short, broad-shouldered, dark-haired, clean-shaven. At a casual glance he might have passed for any professional man of good standing. But once you had met his eyes you never could remember not having been impressed by the man. They were deep-set eyes, dark under heavy eyebrows—reflective eyes, eyes that seemed to take in all you had ever thought or felt and every lie you had ever told.

  George Gleeson was a youngish man, barely fifty, with a sense of humour and a vanity that to some of his older colleagues seemed boyish at times. The higher ranks of the British Civil Service hold some remarkable men. All government is an elaborate game of bluff, and to the men who are on the inside of the pretence the bump of reverence is worn to a hollow. So there were a few of his colleagues, heads of other departments, who could play on George Gleeson’s little weaknesses; and they were the ones who perhaps had the deepest respect for his brains, judgment, and his utter disinterestedness. George Gleeson, in fact, was the sort of civil servant whom Americans can never be persuaded to believe really exist.

  In his department were centred not only all the police activities of Great Britain, but the administration of the immense Department of the Interior. Yet George Gleeson was one of the few men who always had some spare time. He needed that gift for clearing a space round himself this morning, for his big desk in the Home Office contained a mass of press-cuttings mounted on quarto sheets of plain paper relating to the Oissel murder. Here was the stuff which would form the mind of the public as to the strange happenings in Parliament the night before.

  SUICIDE OF MINISTER’S GUEST

  STRANGE DEATH OF MILLIONAIRE

  AT HOME SECRETARY’S PRIVATE DINNER

  AMERICA’S MYSTERY MAN DIES

  IN COMMONS WHILE BURGLARS RAID FLAT

  shouted up at him in streamer headlines.

  If this had happened to any other Minister, Sir George Gleeson would not have been personally concerned with it. The police department ran its own affairs very largely, except when questions of policy had to be decided. But any happenings to his own political chief affected so efficient and loyal a civil servant as though they had happened to himself. Still—and
George Gleeson shrugged his shoulders—if a mere politician, the chief of a fleeting hour, will go off on political adventures, instead of holding on like a good boy to the firm hand of his wise departmental nurse, what can be expected but trouble? And Sir George felt that he had had all the trouble he wanted from this Home Secretary, who was as outwardly dignified and inwardly stubborn as the great civil servant himself.

  Sir George pressed one of the row of electric buttons on his desk, and a secretary glided in noiselessly from behind a screen.

  “Who is handling this Commons case?”

  “Inspector Blackitt, sir. They have rung up from the C.I.D. asking if he could see you as soon as possible.”

  “Is the Home Secretary here yet?”

  “No, sir, they have telephoned from his house to say he won’t be in till his appointment with Inspector Blackitt at midday.”

  “Better ring up and ask Blackitt to come to see me now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The phone bell rang. It was the Prime Minister’s secretary. Had Sir George Gleeson seen the news, and the Premier’s compliments and would Sir George give some special attention to the matter, as rather serious issues might conceivably arise?

  “Does the Prime Minister wish to see me?” inquired the Home Office chief.

  “Oh, no, he doesn’t think it necessary to trouble you,” drawled the voice on the phone in the most perfect Oxford accent. “He just wanted me to ask you——”

  “Then please tell the Prime Minister that matters concerning my department will have my best attention, as usual.” And the receiver clicked back into its rest.

  Prime Ministers make mistakes when they rely too exclusively on the inhuman efficiency of the Service. A little personal flattery is a remarkable lubricant.

  Sir George pressed a button for the appearance of Inspector Blackitt, who was duly wafted into his presence. Sir George did not make mistakes in dealing with subordinates. His manner to the Inspector was a subtle mixture of a deity receiving an archangel on perhaps the fourth rung of the hierarchy and one man of the world talking business to another. Nor did he ever keep a man waiting while he went on with his work. He plunged right into the business in hand.

 

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